Anodizing Aluminum and IP

Differentiating Commodity from Specialty 

Aluminum anodizing and IP (intellectual property) don’t seem to have much in common, at least at first glance. The finishing process for aluminum anodizing has been practiced for nearly a century and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of companies around the world who practice decorative/Type II, and to a lesser extent, hard coat/Type III aluminum anodizing.

There is, of course, a lot of know-how and trade-secret related on how to run certain parts, especially when they are difficult to run—but one would be hard pressed to find anything that is completely novel. In universities, some cutting edge material science has been developed for using the very ordered arrays of pores in sulfuric anodizing for various esoteric ends, but at least for the time being, this is only relevant to a handful of people. 

Why Patent? 

Contrary to general practices in the industry, patents are vital to anodizing for a number of important reasons. Patents:

• Protect innovation
• Signal new technology and performance
• Provide customers assurance they are getting an excellent product 

So, What’s the Connection?

Sanford Process Corporation is an outlier in having filed and received patents both in the U.S. and around the world for micro-crystalline anodizing—MICRALOX®. These are some of the first patents in many years related to the anodic coating and the methods to produce it. Why did we go to all the trouble and expense to develop new technology? Because conventional anodizing simply doesn’t work well for certain applications where the intended environment and use attack and undermine the coating.

MICRALOX®

By making the anodic coating more chemically stable, MICRALOX® provides exceptional performance when parts need to be cleaned, sterilized, or are in corrosive environments. To change the performance, Sanford Process innovated with the manufacturing technology; and after investing in research and development, formal intellectual property was the best way to protect the novelty of the resulting partially micro-crystalline anodic coatings. 

Of equal importance, Sanford Process identified formal patents as a clear way of communicating the novelty of the coating in markets accustomed to commodity offerings. Patents are not easily received and of course need to be formally reviewed by field experts. Patents therefore serve as a distinction to signal the fact that the coatings are new and different. 

Lastly, developing new technology helps our customers innovate with their products. There are many areas where normal anodizing just doesn’t work very well, and our customers can change their aluminum product performance by changing their anodic coating specification. We see this very clearly in the medical industry where the FDA has stated the reprocessing of reusable medical devices as a key area for development. The knock-on effect is that there is a much greater focus on how to get the finishing to perform in regular cleaning and sterilization processes that successfully attack conventional anodizing. Predictable, and reasonably, customers want to know that they are getting a superior performing coating; and the IP provides assurance about the coating because only a limited number of licensed companies who have capability to produce these new coatings are in the market.  

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